CNN crew arrested as fires rage in Minneapolis; Trump calls protesters ‘THUGS,’ suggests looting will lead to ‘shooting’

CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez and his camera crew were arrested on air early Friday as they reported on the protests.

A Minnesota State Police officer said the journalists were arrested because they were told to move and didn’t, according to CNN. Jimenez is seen and heard on camera before his arrest identifying himself and his crew as reporters and saying, “We’re getting out of your way” and “put us back where you want us. Just let us know.”

After Jimenez was zip-tied by his wrists and led away, an off-camera crew member said: “We were just out here reporting the closing of the streets. Omar was just arrested. I believe we’re all about to be arrested.”

The arrest, which happened during CNN’s “New Day,” shocked hosts Alysin Camerota and John Berman.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Berman said.

Police continue to arrest crew members until the cameraman was left. It’s unclear whether police were aware that CNN’s camera continued to roll as they carried it away.

CNN political reporter Abby Phillip noted that her other colleague on the scene, who is white, was not arrested.

“He just reported that police approached him, asked him who he was with, he said CNN,” Phillip said via Twitter. “And they say “ok, you’re good.” This is minutes after Omar, who is black and Latino, was arrested nearby.”

CNN said in a statement on Twitter that the arrest was a First Amendment violation and demanded the reporters’ release.

“A CNN reporter & his production team were arrested this morning in Minneapolis for doing their jobs, despite identifying themselves — a clear violation of their First Amendment rights,” the company said. “The authorities in Minnesota, [including] the Governor, must release the 3 CNN employees immediately.”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) soon apologized for the incident, calling it “totally unacceptable,” according to CNN.

Jimenez was released a short time later and was back on CNN, describing the ordeal.

Hours after Twitter said a tweet by President Trump violated its rules for glorifying violence, the White House posted his same comments about the unrest in Minneapolis on its official account Friday morning.

“These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen,” the White House tweet said, quoting Trump’s words referring to the man who died after a police officer kneeled on his neck. “Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!”

Twitter previously blocked users from seeing those words on Trump’s account, which referred to Minnesota’s governor, unless they clicked on a notice saying it violated its rules.

The White House move comes amid an escalating fight between Trump and the social media platform, which he has accused of trying to censor him and fellow Republicans.

President Trump has long sought to portray himself as an ally of law enforcement, touting his support for police officers. But in some cases, he has taken aim at particular officers and departments in remarks that broke with that pattern — and has also drawn criticism for comments implying police need to use more force.

His post on Twitter suggesting the military could intervene in the Minneapolis unrest and that “shooting” could follow evoked some of his past remarks.

During a 2017 speech on Long Island, Trump suggested that officers should not worry about injuring suspects during arrests.

“When you guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over?” Trump told assembled officers, physically showing the motion of an officer shielding someone’s head to keep it from bumping it on the squad car. “I said, you can take the hand away, okay?”

Current and former police chiefs across the country rebuked Trump over his remarks, as did the International Association of Chiefs of Police, while the then-head of the Drug Enforcement Administration told his staff at the time that Trump had “condoned police misconduct.”

Trump has also made other comments suggesting police need to be more aggressive. He has repeatedly criticized the Chicago police for the levels of gun violence in that city and suggested officers there were not doing their jobs. At one point during the 2016 presidential campaign, he said police there were “not tough,” and after taking office, he called the bloodshed there “very easily fixable.”

Last year, Trump was in Chicago addressing a conference of police chiefs and pilloried the city’s then-police superintendent, Eddie Johnson, who had invoked “our city’s core values” in explaining why he would skip the speech. Trump responded by belittling Johnson in his speech, saying the city deserved a top police official who “knows what he’s doing.” (Johnson was fired a few months later over unrelated issues.)

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) on Friday condemned President Trump for tweets that he said have contributed to the “angry cycle” of violence taking place in Minneapolis in the wake of George Floyd’s death.

Ellison spoke out after early-morning tweets in which Trump referred to protesters as “thugs,” warned that he could send in the military and said that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”

“Calling people thugs and calling on people to get shot stems from the same sort of attitude that resulted in the death of George Floyd,” Ellison said during an appearance on “CBS This Morning.” “The tough guy, macho man … attitude is the heart of the problem. … We need the president, and everybody else who thinks that you can get to a better place through threats of violence, to stop it. Violence begets violence, and Trump’s angry words just feed an angry cycle that is going on in my beloved city.”

Ellison represented a Minneapolis-area congressional district before running for attorney general in 2018.

Twitter said that one of Trump’s tweets violated the company’s rules against glorifying violence, and it blocked users from viewing the tweet without reading a notice to that effect.

In an appearance later Friday on CNN, Ellison said he expects “there will be charges” against the four Minneapolis officers involved in Floyd’s death, though he noted his office is not the one to make that call.

President Trump’s reelection campaign weighed in Friday on the unrest in Minneapolis, saying the city’s mayor and state’s governor had “completely lost control” and sharply criticizing the arrest of a CNN crew by Minnesota police.

Both Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz are Democrats.

“Mayor Frey & Gov Walz have completely lost control in Minneapolis in a catastrophic display of failed leadership,” said a tweet from an official Trump campaign account. “The city is on fire & they outrageously arrested a CNN crew.”

The Trump campaign’s support for the CNN crew was notable given that the network has been repeatedly criticized by the president as “fake news” and that he has frequently touted his unflagging support for law enforcement.

The CNN crew was arrested early Friday while reporting on the protests. CNN said in a statement that the three journalists were arrested “for doing their jobs, despite identifying themselves.” The crew was later released.

In the tweet, the campaign also noted that Trump had called on the Justice Department to investigate George Floyd’s death during an encounter with police.

“Clear-eyed justice must be served!” the tweet said.

As protests over the death of George Floyd intensified in Minneapolis on Thursday night, President Trump slammed the demonstrators as “THUGS” on Twitter, threatening military intervention if the situation worsens and suggesting more looting would lead to “shooting.”

“These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen,” Trump tweeted shortly before 1 a.m. Friday, adding, “Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”

Critics condemned Trump’s tweet, asserting that he was promoting violent retaliation against protesters, and Twitter took swift action, flagging the post for violating rules about glorifying violence. The move is likely to exacerbate the fight between Trump and Twitter this week first sparked by the platform’s decision to place fact-checking labels on two of his erroneous tweets. On Thursday, after days of raging against social media companies, Trump signed an executive order that could punish them for how they police content.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Washington Post early Friday.

Former vice president Joe Biden said Thursday night that the country must address the “older and deeper” problem of police brutality against minorities to heal from the “open wound” caused by George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis.

“People all across this country are enraged and rightly so,” Biden said at the outset of a virtual fundraiser. “Every day, African Americans go about their lives with constant anxiety and trauma of wondering, ‘Will I be next?’ Sounds like an exaggeration, but it’s not.”

Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said Floyd’s death in his encounter with police “ripped open anew this … ugly underbelly of our society.” He said the officers involved must be held accountable.

“You know, if we’re not committed as a nation, with every ounce of purpose in our beings, not just to binding up this wound in hope that somehow the scab once again will cover things over, but to treat the underlying injury, we’re never going to eventually heal,” he said.

Biden’s remarks came at the outset of a fundraising concert that included musicians David Crosby, Sheryl Crow, Rufus Wainwright, Joe Walsh and Jimmy Buffett. It was hosted by Whoopi Goldberg and Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.).

MINNEAPOLIS — A predominantly young group of protesters descended on the city’s Third Precinct, which had been evacuated by authorities on Thursday night, setting fire to the structure as numerous looters searched smoke-filled hallways for souvenirs.

C’Monie Scott, 22, held up a gun belt complete with dangling handcuffs in one hand, and screamed into a megaphone, “F— the police!” Scott said none of it would be happening if the city had quickly moved to prosecute the officers involved in the death of George Floyd.

“My people are only doing this because there is no justice,” Scott said. “Before this happened, we have never gone this far. This is on you guys. We’re three days in, sleep-deprived, dehydrated, hungry, and he still hasn’t been charged.”

As Scott spoke at 1:30 a.m., the second of four stolen postal vans sped through the intersection of East Lake Street and Minnehana Avenue. With one van having already been flipped over and set on fire, another vehicle, hot-wired and piloted by a 19-year-old community college student, would soon crash into the flaming wreckage.

The driver, who asked to be identified as Muhammad, said he was a student at Century College in White Bear Lake and had been studying to become a police officer until this week, when the weight of Floyd’s death and his friends’ disapproval of his career choice swung his ambition.

“I initially did it because it was a childhood dream, but there’s a lot better things I could do,” he said. “This irritated me so much. It’s clear cut. What more evidence could you possibly need?”

Self-appointed field medics used supplies from Target to treat the injured, including Muhammad, who lacerated his finger in the van heist and had a piece of glass wedged in the sole of his foot.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” he said. “Cause mayhem. Be heard.”

President Trump slammed the protesters in Minneapolis who breached a police precinct in response to the death of George Floyd, calling the demonstrators “THUGS,” suggesting military intervention and warning that there would be additional violence if looting continued.

“I can’t stand back & watch this happen to a great American City, Minneapolis,” Trump tweeted around 1 a.m. Friday. He added, “These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen.”

The president, in promising the U.S. military would take control of the situation if it escalated, added, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”

Trump blamed Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) for the city’s 3rd Precinct building getting overrun by protesters. He said the mayor needed to “get his act together and bring the City under control, or I will send in the National Guard & get the job done right.”

It’s unclear what Trump was referencing, as Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) had already activated the National Guard earlier in the day, with more than 500 soldiers sent to St. Paul, Minneapolis and surrounding communities. While federal troops can provide logistical support in cases of national emergency, they cannot be used to enforce the law.

Trump indicated that he spoke with Walz, tweeting that he assured the governor that “the Military is with him all the way.”

“Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” Trump tweeted.

The president’s message toward the protesters was met with backlash early Friday. Several observers noted that the phrase, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” was coined by Miami Police Chief Walter Headley in 1967, who vowed violent reprisals on black protesters.